Oh God

Today I am sickened, heartbroken, and lost. I had heard that there was another school shooting.

Is it not bad enough that I just called it "another school shooting?" This should never ever happen. And yet this morning when I walked past the newspaper box on the way to the bank, my feet stopped. My heart skipped. I saw the men in their straw hats and their beards. I saw the headline. Oh God, no, not them.
This is the newspaper story.

I'm fiercely protective of the Amish. The Old Order Amish, the Old Order Mennonites. I won't let you make fun of them. I am reluctant to post photos of them, even though I think they're amazing looking, because I respect their need to be left alone. I even feel like I shouldn't be writing about this, and let them deal with it privately without the rest of the world putting them under the microscope. They are a misunderstood group of people.

Wikipedia page on Amish
Wikipedia page on Mennonite

It's never been a secret around here that I'm Mennonite. I'm actually Amish-Mennonite. My background is 100% Swiss-German. My entire geneology can be traced back more than 150 years ago to two families who moved to Pennsylvania. They left Europe to escape religious persecution. They were being tortured and killed because they wanted the right to choose adult baptism. They left Pennsylvania for Ontario because they refused to take sides in the Civil War. They wouldn't send their sons out to kill their neighbours.

I've heard all the arguments from people who have no clue what they're talking about. That this whole thing about living separately from the world is pointless and irrelevant and stupid. I've heard the accusations that to be a pacifist is to be a coward.

Now you tell me. A twelve year old girl, executed by a total stranger. A man so haunted by his own problems that he tied them up and shot them.

Who's the coward?

Turn the other cheek. Still wanna hit me? Who's the coward now?

For all I know, there are people there who are descended from the same two couples who moved there in the 1830s. There could be kids in that school with the original spelling of my last name.

Does it matter? The term "school shooting" should not exist. End of story. No argument. But to me, for someone to target this community of people who have only wanted to live the way they choose to live, without interference, and for that person to take his angers and frustrations out on those whom he damn well knew would not fight back...

I am heartbroken.

My anger welled up in me and I found myself thinking that I wanted the killer dead. (I didn't know at the time that he already was dead.)

I don't believe in an eye for an eye. I'm Mennonite; it's against my religion to kill people. More than that: I'm Christian. Do you think I've never wished for revenge though? Ha. I remember when some deluded psychopath blew up a building in Oklahoma. In our Sunday School class soon after (we have adult Sunday school) I sat across the room from my grandmother, the pastor's wife, and I admitted that if my child had been killed in that explosion I might want to see some capitol punishment. But the truth is--

Can you handle the truth?

We can't take a life for a life.

We can't take a life.

When will this stop?

I cried. I tapped the front page of the newspaper. I told my husband that people shouldn't have guns.

He shook his head slowly. "That guy was determined to kill somebody. He would have found a way."

Please, everybody. Make it stop.

Do you know what those Amish families are doing right now? They are struggling to find it in their hearts to forgive. And they will. They will forgive because that's what Jesus taught. They will forgive because they believe that God will find a way to make us learn something from this. I'm not bible thumping you today, okay? I'm telling you what I know.

If I have only ten people reading this today, please tell somebody else. Make it stop. Stop holding your hates. Stop crushing down your hurts and problems until it makes you bleed your hatred out onto others who never deserved it.

Stop lying to yourself. Stop telling yourself that you don't need any help. Stop plotting revenge for that person who wronged you.

We have to stop killing each other.